The price is $739.00 US and does not include a drive. As to the mount being Celestron the official word from Skyview Instruments is "We confirm these are the same telescopes sold by Celestron and Orion".

Optical quality decent for price. Secondary, easy to align but, spider off-center, with no adjustability. Polar scope (Celestron-type) absolutely garbage!MUST be collimated after three or four outings. Optics perform well enoughat low powers, but when pushed over 150 power, focussing requires patience !The CG-5 style mount is ok, but much better suited to a smaller scope.The tri-pod, to be very polite, is suitable for a 35 mm camera, but not muchmore !This mount does NOT operate well in very cold weather, and in fact, all three'PLASTIC' leg braces (tray supports?) shattered during normal use this pastwinter.

Hi I bought one inFebruary 2008.It was not well collimated out of the box.And the sale person collimated somewhat.It was relatively ok.I bought a kit (Sight tube and autocollimator ) from Astrotech.I collimated.Now woth ploss from Zhummel and a televue Barlow 3x I got 750 time one the Moone. Tonight I go 6 mm and Barlow 3X Saturn at 500 X. At 750 it lost a bit.You go M42 the trapexoidum at 500 any time, and you can see the shape even with these basics eyepeices.I am waiting for my Baader Hyperion to come, but this is definitely an APO killer.I got a 4mm, 6mm, 12.5 mm, 32 mm , a barlow and 7 filterdfor 89.00. And with this I got 500 times sharp on Saturn inthe ,light polluted city of Montreal.I also got a good quality zoom from my apochromatic times...Yeah it was bellow frezing so seing is good.These optics are exceptionnal for their price.This come from Guan Sheng, he guaranties 1/15 of a lamba(wavelength) of yellow I suppose 550 nm.And this guy don't want come back as any manufacturer.so you can imagine he pollishes better thant that.I read on internet in the last 9 months the surface has been more smooth. The figuring as always have been bettter thantany other mass produce telescope. So unless you go Discovery, Royces and other specialized mirrors, this is the best bang for the buck, and it is not surethe others will offer such a difference.

My neighbour has a 8 inch Orion and he never go past120 and even then...So don't say this is like Orion, I have looked in his telescope, and there are no comparaison. This scope is in an other category. And I was using is SpeerWaler eyepiece, costing40 times what I am using in my Antares.

To the defense of his Orion, it didn't have a crayford focuserand I didn't collimated it.Than can have a serious impact on a Newton performance.

I can't speak relative to other manufacturer of Newton as I have not personnaly look into them.

So go with this, but don't forget the dual speed focusseror you can kiss goodbye to the high magnification, you will never be able to focus.And collimate well and if you can with an autocollimator, I did and witn one guaranteed to 3 arc second error maximum.

I can see the original, the first and the second reflexion.So I am dead on up to 5 time the focal length, and amazinglythis guy keep it aligment, I do chek that.

Read about collimation, this is pretty easy, and if you fellgood about it, go with a Newton, and particularly this one.I might never go back to aprochromatic refractor, althought I have one 66 mm, but the view in my 8 inches are a 100 timesbetter than in my small apo.

Have a clear sky with good seeing.Cold nighs are good for 2 things, no humidity, and no bugs!